


whiteout conditions

by openended



Category: Madam Secretary
Genre: F/M, Flashbacks, Insomnia, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Video Chat, msec staff makes cameo appearances, post-Tamerlane
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-14 01:55:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15378150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/openended/pseuds/openended
Summary: fineis a four-letter word





	whiteout conditions

**Author's Note:**

> based on [this prompt](https://lilacmermaid25.tumblr.com/post/175896140540/madam-secretary-prompt-after-iran-what-if): after Iran, what if Elizabeth was already on another international trip when she had her first panic attack?

She dozes on the plane. There’s a bed for her tucked away somewhere, but that feels a bit too much like _sleeping_. And with sleeping comes _staying awake_ and _staring at the ceiling_ , so if she lies down on the couch in her office, turns off all but one lamp, kicks off her shoes and closes her eyes, she can pretend that she isn’t sleeping and fake herself into it anyway.

An old Company trick she last used on a hardwood floor in a safe house outside Baghdad. Eight hours until her evac, she was running on 40 awake and knew she wasn’t going to make it the full two days. Not if she wanted to make it from the safe house to the LZ alive. And she had three very good reasons to make it to the LZ alive.

All things considered, her leather couch in her office aboard her plane is significantly more comfortable than that uneven hardwood floor in the 110-in-the-shade heat. Which is probably why she can’t manage more than twelve minutes without waking up.

Elizabeth sighs and scrubs a hand over her face. She checks her watch, squinting at the too-bright display in the dim light, and sighs again. Another two hours until landing - too late to take the sleeping pills Nadine has in stock for them on international flights with weird departure times. She’s stuck with the couch and pretending that she isn’t trying to sleep.

She turns on her side and manages another three minutes before the plane hits a bump of turbulence and sends the attendants and their drink cart crashing into the wall just behind her head -

and suddenly her ears are ringing and there’s dust and plaster showering down around her, and Abdol’s screaming for his father who lies dead between them with his eyes open, staring at her, and she tries to crawl to him but Fred’s a dead weight on top of her and not moving

and as Fred’s arm falls down limply she realizes - amidst the screaming and the ringing and the shrapnel and the dawning sensation that she’s bleeding - that _dead weight_ is literal

she tries to move, tries to push Fred off of her to get to Abdol but there’s more, there’s gunfire and another explosion, and everything’s too bright and too loud and she thinks of Alison’s birthday and the Laffy String fight -

Elizabeth inhales sharply and shoves the blanket off and sits up. She rests her head in her hands, threading her fingers through her hair, and just tries to breathe.

 _I’m fine,_ she told Henry this morning. _It’s England. Perfectly safe._ She smiled, kissed him, hugged their children, and got into the black SUV waiting outside.

She is fine. She doesn’t have time to be not-fine. She has a meeting with the Prime Minister and several cabinet members, and there’s a thing with the Queen that may or may not be happening that her staff has been briefing her on for the past week. And then when she gets back there’s the peace talks and Russia and Greece and Juliet and -

Elizabeth forces herself to take a breath, and _think_. She solves problems for a living, and this should be cake compared to Middle East peace talks or saving Greece’s failing economy.

In addition to her office and an actual working surgical bay, there’s a small workout room. She drinks the entirety of a lukewarm bottle of water and then goes in search of the sneakers she always packs on these trips in false hope she’ll actually have time for the treadmill.

***

There is such a thing as too much coffee. She found that out in Yemen after finally getting what she needed from a sixteen-hour nonstop interrogation.

And now, thirteen years later, she’s in a conference room in Whitehall, one cup of coffee away from too much.

Elizabeth doesn’t know what she’s saying. She hears words coming out of her mouth and sees the Secretary’s eyes go wide, she feels herself yelling at a man she’s known since she was sixteen, but a truck rumbles past and she’s on the floor of Javani’s living room, staring into his lifeless eyes while his son cries and her bodyguard lies dead on top of her.

It’s like she’s catapulted over the line into way too much coffee even though she’s only had water in the past hour - she’s sweating and shaking, can’t think, can’t stand up, can’t _breathe_.

She manages to excuse herself properly, manners holding steady only through muscle memory, and exits the room, leaving three stunned British cabinet members behind.

Nadine takes one look at her and shuttles her off to the side room they’ve been granted, telling Blake to get a doctor _here_ and _fast_ and _silent_.

“I can’t breathe,” Elizabeth rasps and she stumbles, leaning heavily on Nadine, who takes all her weight without so much as a hitch.

Daisy drops her phone, it clatters on the table like gunfire, and rushes to her side, helping her into a chair. Elizabeth hears her staff talking, but none of the words make any sense, and she can’t get to Abdol. Javani’s dead and Fred’s on top of her and she’s bleeding and the ringing in her ears is so loud but Abdol’s screams are louder and she can’t get to him, can’t hug him, can’t shield him from his father’s body.

God only knows where Daisy finds a paper bag, and Elizabeth sure can’t hear anything, but something deep inside of her understands what Daisy’s trying to get her to do.

By the time the doctor gets there - seven minutes, at most - she’s breathing again, but she’s sobbing into Nadine’s shoulder while a portrait of Winston Churchill watches over them.

***

“It was a panic attack,” she says softly, after telling him everything.

Her staff has handled damage control, and she’s apologized to the Secretaries she yelled at, claiming jet lag and too many time zones in not enough days. The thing with the Queen is definitely _not_ happening - something about a pregnant corgi, she’s fuzzy on the details - so thankfully she has one thing knocked off her list.

Henry sighs quietly and smiles softly at her. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“That’s debatable.”

He snorts, a completely unattractive noise she’d give anything to hear in person right now. But she’s an ocean away and video will have to suffice. “You know what I mean.”

A smile - a small one, but a smile nonetheless - tugs at her lips. “You were right,” she says. “I may not be entirely…fine.”

“That’s okay,” he assures her.

Elizabeth waits for the joke to come, the smirk and _I know how much it pains you to admit I’m right,_ but it doesn’t. She looks away, nearly drowning in the weight of how worried he is. She clasps her mug of tea in both hands, relishing the warmth, and tries not to hear explosions in the sky as thunder rolls quietly in the distance.

“Hey,” he says, drawing her attention back to her laptop, “I can still fly over.”

Shaking her head, she rests against the pillows behind her. “No, we’re leaving in a day and a half. By the time you got here, you’d just have to turn around. I’ll be…” she feels _fine_ start to form on her lips, and changes direction before the lie can fall out again. “I’ll see you when I get home.”

Henry nods. “Okay.” He holds her gaze for another moment, and she gives him a little smile. Nodding, he changes the subject, to Jason and his gigantic security guard.

He stays with her on the video chat even as the chamomile settles in, even as she lies down and tucks up underneath the comforter, even as the clock rolls over and it becomes Tuesday for him too, still talking. Their kids, Stevie and work, Alison living in the aftermath of Jason’s expulsion, Jason and the social dramas of public school. Henry’s book, actually near finished, and he sends her a few final pages she skims and promises to read for real on the plane on the way home.

Conversation drifts into other topics, lighter ones like the Nationals blowing an eight-run lead to be obliterated by the Padres, and whether she’d like pasta or steak when she gets back ( _surprise me_ ), and a new Coeur de Pirate album.

As she starts to drift off, the combination of chamomile mixed with sheer exhaustion an inevitable path to sleep, she hears Henry say her name.

She opens her eyes.

“I love you,” he says.

“I love you, too.” Elizabeth reaches out and brushes her fingers over the screen, as if she could reach through the screen and touch him. She sniffs and drops her hand. “I know it’s late, but would you, uhm. Stay with me?”

His smile does more to settle her than anything else has all day. More than the soft _breathe in, breathe out_ from Daisy, more than whatever the doctor gave her, more than takeaway Indian for dinner with her staff while watching Graham Norton, more than the chamomile and very hot bath.

“Of course,” he says. “Sleep well.”

She folds her glasses and sets them on the bedside table. “I love you,” she murmurs, settling back down under the fluffy comforter.

“I love you,” he says, and it’s the last thing she hears before she finally drifts into a solid, dreamless sleep.


End file.
